Some of India’s leading scientists have called on the Centre to clarify the criteria and processes adopted to select the winners of the National Science Awards, amid concerns that “unfair non-scientific considerations” might have influenced the final list.

Twenty-six scientists, all of them among former winners of the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes, have in a joint letter to the principal scientific adviser (PSA) to the government, requested “complete and detailed procedural transparency” to set doubts at rest.

The letter follows concerns among sections of scientists that the government’s final list of winners of the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP) or National Science Awards, released on August 7, was different from what the RVP Committee (RVPC) had submitted to the government.

The change — at least one name dropped, according to scientists familiar with the development — had prompted speculation whether the government had exercised an additional screening layer that came into play after the RVPC submitted its list.

“We are writing to ask whether the recommendations of the RVPC were accepted in entirety, or were revised by further committees or authorities,” the 26 scientists wrote in the letter to PSA Ajay Sood on August 30. “In the latter case, we request that details of the nature of these committees and criteria employed in arriving at their
decisions be made public, as we could not find any mention of this on the government website.”

Sood was the chairperson of the RVPC, which also included presidents of India’s science academies, secretaries in government science departments and some distinguished scientists.

A senior scientist associated with the RVP selection process told The Telegraph on Sunday that the selection process described on the Union home ministry’s webpage on awards, had been followed. The section on the RVP selection process has a line that says: “The RVPC will recommend the names to the Honorable Minister of Science and Technology.”

Two signatories, while declining to discuss the letter, told this newspaper that it was intended to be private correspondence seeking clarifications from the PSA and hoping that concerns among sections of scientists would be conveyed to the government.

The Union science ministry had announced the new annual awards named RVP last September, saying they would be the country’s “highest recognitions” for “notable and inspiring” contributions in science, technology and innovation.

The establishment of the RVP followed an earlier directive from the Centre to science departments to discontinue earlier awards and introduce “high stature awards” with new names. The earlier Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes have given way to the Vigyan Yuva Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards.

The letter’s signatories include biologists, mathematicians and physicists who are faculty in some of India’s top academic and research institutions and have themselves participated as members of expert committees that had selected Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize winners in the past.

“In our experience, (the) recommendations (of earlier expert committees) have always found full reflection in the final Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awards’ list,” the 26 scientists wrote in their letter. “In order to uphold the integrity of the Bhatnagar award, we seek assurance that the procedures and criteria for determining Vigyan Yuva Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awards are fully fair, transparent and free of extraneous considerations,” they wrote.